is in my hands? You treat me from high to low? You refuse to ally yourself with me? Hein?”
“I will use you as an instrument against Launcelot Darrell, if you please,” Eleanor answered, “since it seems that you have quarrelled with your fast friend.”
“But, yes, madame. When pussy has pulled the chestnuts out of the fire, she is henceforward the most unuseful of animals, and they chase her. Do you understand, madame?” cried the Frenchman, with a sudden transformation from the monkey to the tiger phase of his character, that was scarcely agreeable. “Do you understand?” he hissed. “Monsieur Launcelot has ennuied himself of me. I am chased! Me!”
He struck his gloved fingers upon his breast to give emphasis to this last word.
“It is of the last canaille, this young man,” he continued, with a shrug of disgust. “Ingrate, poltroon, scoundrel! When the forge will, forge at my suggestion by the clerk of the avoué de Vindsor, has been read, and all is finish, and no one dispute his possession, and he enter his new domain as master, the real nature of the man reveal itself. The genuine will is burn, he think. He is so close with his dear friend, this poor Bourdon, that he will not even tell him who would have benefit by that genuine will. It is burn! Did he not see it scorch and blaze with his own eyes? There is nothing to fear; and for this poor comrade who has helped my gentleman to a great fortune, he is less than that!”
Monsieur Bourdon snapped his fingers derisively, and stared fiercely at Eleanor. Then he relapsed into a sardonic smile, and went on.
“At first things go on charmingly. Monsieur Launcelot is more sweet than the honey. It is new to him to be rich, and for the first month he scatters his money with full hands. Then suddenly he stops. He cries out that he is on the road to ruin; that his friend’s claims are monstrous. Faith of a gentleman, I was, perhaps, extravagant; for I am a little gamester, and I like to see life en grand seigneur. A bas la moutarde, I said. My friend is millionaire. I am no more commercial traveller. Imagine, then, when mon garçon shuts up his—what is it you call it, then—cheque-book, and refuse me a paltry sum of a thousand francs. I smile in his face,” said Monsieur Bourdon, nodding his head slowly, with half-closed eyes, “and I say, ‘Bon jour, Monsieur Darrell; you shall hear more of me before I am much older.’”
“You did not tell him that the will was in your possession?”
“A thousand thunders! No!” exclaimed the Frenchman. “I was not so much foolish as to show him the beneath the cards. I come over here to consult a friend, an avoué.”
“And he tells you—?”
“No matter. You are better than the avoué, madame. You hate Launcelot Darrell; this will is all you want to prove him a cheat and a blacksmith,—pardon, a forger.”
“But to whom does M. de Crespigny leave his estate in this genuine will?” asked Mrs. Monckton.
The Frenchman smiled, and looked at Eleanor thoughtfully for a moment before he answered her.
“Wait a little, madame,” he said; “that is my little secret. Nothing for nothing is the rule here below. I have told you too much already. If you want to know more you must pay me.”
“Prove that I spoke the truth upon that night,” exclaimed Eleanor, “and I promise you that my husband, Gilbert Monckton, shall reward you handsomely.”
“But if monsieur should repudiate your promise, madame, since he has not authorised you to give it? I am not very wise in your English law, and I would rather not mix myself in this affair. I do not want to be produced as witness or accomplice. I want, all simply, to get a price for this document. I have something to sell. You wish to buy it. Name your price.”
“I cannot,” answered Eleanor; “I have no money. But I might get some, perhaps. Tell me, how much do you want?”
“A thousand pounds.”
Eleanor shook her head despondently.
“Impossible!” she said; “there is no one, except my husband, from whom I could get such an amount, and I could not ask him for money, until I had proved Launcelot Darrell’s infamy.”
The Frenchman watched her closely. He saw that she had spoken the truth.
“You do not know how much this will is worth to you, madame,” he said. “Remember, I could make terms with Launcelot Darrell, and sell it to him for perhaps ten times the sum I ask of you. But Monsieur Darrell was insolent to me; he struck me once with the butt-end of his hunting-whip; I do not forget. I could get more money from him; but I can get my revenge through you.”
He hissed out these words between his teeth, and glared vindictively at the fountain, as if the phantom of Launcelot Darrell had been looking at him out of the sparkling water-drops. Revenge was not a beautiful thing, as represented by Victor Bourdon. Perhaps Eleanor may have thought of this as she looked at him.
“I want my revenge,” he repeated, “after all, gold is a villain thing. Revenge is more dear—to gentlemen. Besides, I do not think you would pay me ungenerously if I helped you to crush this scoundrel, and helped you to something else, by the market, Hein?”
“I tell you again, that you shall be well rewarded,” Mrs. Monckton said gravely.
“Very well, then, listen to me. It is to-day, Tuesday. In a week I shall have time to think. In a week you will have leisure to gather together a little money—all you can get; at the end of that time come to me at my apartment—bring with you any friend you like. I do not think that you are traitor—or ingrate—and you see I trust you. I will have my friend, the—what you call him—attorney, with me—and we may come to an arrangement. You shall sign a contract—well ruled—for to pay me in the future, and then the will is to you. You return to England; you say, Aha, Monsieur Launcelot, walk out of that. It is your turn to be chased.”
Victor Bourdon grinned ferociously, then took a memorandum-book from his pocket, wrote a few words in pencil, tore out the leaf upon which